Google SketchUp 7.1 review

Where Photo Texturing comes into its own is in quickly, and sketchily, texturing the surrounding neighbourhood of your main project. It would still be a waste of effort to recreate buildings like this if someone has already done it and made it available, which is where the Components panel’s new Nearby Models command comes in. Select it and SketchUp 7.1 automatically searches for all downloadable models within striking distance of your geo-referenced scene.

The value of this capability depends entirely on what models are available and for the moment you have to think Manhattan rather than Manchester. To prime the pump, Google needs to make it as easy as possible to share buildings and the building blocks – doors, windows, furniture and so on – that make them up. That’s exactly what the new Upload Component command does, letting you post individual elements to the 3D Warehouse without having to first break up your scene.

That looks to be about it for new power in SketchUp 7.1, apart from an overhaul of its rendering engine which makes orbiting, zooming and drawing significantly faster when working with larger projects. Then there are the new KMZ and DAE import and export capabilities. At first sight this might seem hardly worth registering, after all neither format is a household name: KMZ is the standalone Google Earth format and DAE is the XML-based Collada format on which it’s built.

In fact it’s very significant. In particular, for the first time, Google is letting users of the free SketchUp export their work to a 3D format for use in ongoing 3D workflows. Whether this is viable clearly depends on support, but this is already spreading rapidly – most modern modellers support DAE as do some less obvious options such as Photoshop Extended. Now users of any Collada-supporting application can take advantage of Google SketchUp 7.1, and its pool of ready-to-use 3D Warehouse components, to quickly and creatively produce true 3D models for further reworking for free.

The biggest significance is clearly for users of SketchUp Pro. Since its original launch, Google has greatly expanded Pro’s functionality with its Style Builder and LayOut add-on applications. It does so again in this latest 7.1 Pro release, with a host of improvements to LayOut 2 such as improved drawing, grid handling, snapping, list formatting and new dimensioning. However, there’s no doubt that most professional users have had little choice but to stick with the commercial Pro release if they wanted to re-use their SketchUp work elsewhere. With SketchUp 7.1 that may no longer be necessary.

Don’t be fooled by the modest “.1” increment, SketchUp 7.1 is a significant update and repositioning. Google’s done the right thing by at least partially unlocking SketchUp – as the company says “the data you create is yours”. You can’t help feeling, however, that Google would prefer some of its users not to notice.

Author: Tom Arah